Officiating during UCLA game

[sjbrink]

I thought the officiating was somewhat slanted in favor of UCLA, especially in the paint. I thought there were several instances where Xavier made what appeared to be a clean block, but Xavier was called for a foul, and if UCLA made a similar block, the officials didn't call the foul on UCLA. I thought Kevin Love may have gotten away with a couple of blocks that should have been fouls. And I also thought Love and UCLA were getting away with a lot of pushing and over-the-back type fouls when going for rebounds. I thought this had a big impact on the game's outcome especially if Love had been called for a 2nd foul early on in the first half. I'll have to go back and watch the game a second time, but I think Xavier got homered a bit.

I thought when Xavier lost to Oklahoma in the second round during Thad's first year at Xavier, the same thing happened. Oklahoma was kindof murdering Xavier on the boards, but the officials weren't calling the fouls on Oklahoma. Oh well, I guess the higher seed usually gets the advantage as far as officiating is concerned.

[schmidy43]

I agree, This also happened when we played gonzaga two years ago and cry-baby Adam morrison got away with everything, and I believe it is just because he was an All-American

[CarlosTheJackal]

Love and UCLA and the Big 10 plays body up style down low, and those are just the facts of life. Bigger faster players mean more contact, and the refs were simply not going to call all the contact. As biased as I am, I think the game was fairly called.

We make free throws and open shots in the first 20 minutes, and we are in that game, even with the style of reffing not favoring us. Let a team with more speed and short range jumper shooters than us get on a roll, we have a problem, like just about any team.

Any style of reffing, we win 2-3 out of 10 against that team. Suck it up Muskies, we lost at the end of GREAT season.

[Biff Tannen]

Yeah, Dow mentioned this in passing in the Enquirer this morning in the game notes. Ed Hightower was officiating the game. When Hightower is involved there will be tons of horrible calls. Dow mentioned how Hightower made several questionable calls in Xavier's favor against UGA in round 1 but those favorable calls weren't there last night. He specifically mentioned Drew's blocking foul which could have been called a charge on Collison, but the fact is about 95% of blocking or charging calls could be called the other way. Our alma mater lost by 19, no amount of officiating can account for that. Had the game been within 4 or 5 points maybe we could have a beef, but UCLA beat X in every aspect of the game and thats that.

Just understand that when Hightower is out there its going to be poorly officiated.

[XinAlbany]

I agree that although there were some questionable calls, it did not change the outcome of the game. I think if X had made their open shots and FT's in the first half and begining of the second half, the outcome of the game would have been different.

[RONALD78]

Come on ..get real. Officiating did NOT decide this game in any way. Xavier had one of its not so great games in shooting, free throws, ball handling, etc X might have won or at least made it closer had they played better , but this is a program that has 3 straight Final Fours....not exactly a team that needs officiating help(except in the Texas A&M game).

[XU84]

I agree that the officiating did not cause X to lose this one. Poor shooting, probably the result of being a little rattled by the magnitude of the game, caused X to fall. It happens, and we move on.

[MADXSTER]

I thought the game was called as it should have been. Games in the NCAA tourney will never be called like in most league play with a bunch of ticky tack fouls being called.

[sjbrink]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW5QT70DHhI

Watch this video of the end of the UCLA vs. Texas A&M second round game. The video is only 65 seconds long. The video doesn't appear to me to have been altered/edited. A&M CLEARLY GOT ROBBED.

Regardless of people's opinion of whether the officiating of UCLA vs. XU was good or not, I think that UCLA absolutely robbed A&M at the end of UCLA's second round game vs. A&M. The A&M player was CLEARLY FOULED NOT ONCE BUT TWICE as he drove the lane with about 5 seconds left. That was one of the worst no-calls I have ever seen. So, I think that game should have gone to OT with UCLA potentially losing.

I am just angry because I think UCLA homered Xavier a bit, and I'm tired of this sort of incompetent officiating. An Elite 8 game should be officiated better than this, regardless of the margin of defeat.

I copied the below from the "UCLA First half thread" thread posted earlier.

9822 wrote:
How is J. Love's block a foul, but not K. Love's block?

5DecadeHawk wrote:
It's UCLA. Anyone who plays them must beat their 8 on the floor with your 5 on the floor.

Other teams have had the same problems:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW5QT70DHhI